about 3 weeks ago i bought an air still and some turbo yeast and carbon from my local brewshop on the advice of a friend and produced some ok/drinkable spirit but was annoyed by how long it took to run a 25 liter wash (16 hours from start to finish....the man who recommended the air still to me is no longer my friend
)after running two washes and a couple of gallons of fruit wine i got frustrated and went back to the brewshop and begged the man to take back my air still and swap it for the reflux. I did my first run with it last night and now i have a couple of questions...
i used birdwatchers sugar wash recipe (scaled down to 25 liters).
does anyone know how much alcohol i should get from this?
i tossed the first 200ml which i presume is mostly ethyl ethanoate and acetaldehyde and other nasties and then kept the next 2.5 liters (then the temp on my thermometer started shooting up to 90C so i stopped collecting) my collected spirit had a abv of 82%. does this sound ok?
after i have diluted it down to 40% it tastes like an ok quality vodka, i have tasted it alongside a popular store bought brand and while i can say for certain which one is store bought and which one is home made i am fairly satisfied with what i have made.
Will the taste of the one i made change much over time? Will it mellow and get closer in taste to store bought? how long will this process take?
also, how important are cuts with a reflux still like this? Once i had collected 200 mls of foreshot i started colecting spirit, then once i had 2.5 liters of drinking spirit the distillate started to smell and taste like wet soggy cardboard so i stopped. Do i need to make any further cuts to improve quality?
a carbon filter tube and buckets came with the still but they seem like such a hassle i cant be bothered using it...
thanks!!
